קְרֵב
to approach
‘to approach’ is one of 4 main senses fuller range ↓
Full lexicon entry — Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
From Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
Where this word appears
See every Qal verb in the Hebrew Bible →
Grammar key — what these labels mean
Part of speech
- Verb
- An action or state-of-being word.
Stem
- Qal
- The basic, simple active stem — the plain form of the verb (“he wrote”).
- Hiphil
- The causative active stem (“he caused / brought about”).
- Piel
- An intensive or resultative active stem.
- Qal Passive
- An archaic passive of the Qal, preserved in a few forms.
Form
- Infinitive Construct
- A bound verbal noun, frequently with prepositions (“to write / in writing”).
- Perfect
- A completed action or state — Hebrew marks aspect (completeness) more than strict tense (“he wrote”).
- Imperfect
- An incomplete, ongoing, or future action (“he will / would write”).
- Participle Active
- A verbal adjective expressing ongoing or characteristic action (“writing / one who writes”).
State
- Absolute
- The independent form of a noun, not bound to a following word.
Person
- 3rd Person
- The one spoken about (“he / she / it / they”).
- 2nd Person
- The one addressed (“you”).
- 1st Person
- The speaker (“I / we”).
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
- Common
- Either gender — not distinguished for this form.
Number
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
- Singular
- One.
3 distinct verses where H7127 appears in the Hiphil stem, across 2 books. Filtered view — show all forms. Click any verse to open its interlinear word-by-word view. Verse text shown in the World English Bible for context — . Each verse’s Hebrew form is shown with its reference; the English is not keyword-highlighted, since the data carries no word-level English alignment. Use “Compare translations” on any verse to read it across multiple English versions. This concordance covers the Hebrew Bible; Septuagint (Greek Old Testament) occurrences are not indexed here.
Ezra 2 verses
- Ezra 6:10 מְהַקְרְבִ֛ין Hiphil ptcp.act mp that they may offer sacrifices of sweet savor to the God of heaven, and pray for the life of the king, and of his sons.
- Ezra 6:17 וְ/הַקְרִ֗בוּ conj + Hiphil pf 3mp They offered at the dedication of this house of God one hundred bulls, two hundred rams, four hundred lambs; and for a sin-offering for all Israel, twelve male goats, according to the number of the tribes of Israel.
Daniel 1 verse
About this entry
At a glance — auto-summarized from this page’s data, not written by a person. Every figure links to its source below. This summary describes the numbers; it doesn’t interpret them.
קרב — transliterated qᵉrêb — is a Hebrew verb carrying the sense “to approach.” Its uses cluster heavily in Daniel (67% of all occurrences). With 9 verses in 2 books, it is an uncommon word in the Hebrew Bible. It first appears in Ezra 6:10. As a verb its force shifts by stem, across 3 stems (Peal, Pael, and more). Each statement above links to its evidence; the full detail follows below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H7127 catalogs a Hebrew word from the Hebrew Old Testament.
These counts are not copied from any lexicon or concordance. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged Hebrew Old Testament. What Lemma adds →
- 9
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 9 distinct verses.
- 2 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 2 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #2,481
- by frequency
- Top 2500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 2,481 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 9 occurrences in the concordance →
By traditional corpus
Conventional, traditional groupings — biblical authorship is debated, so this is a traditional corpus grouping, not an authorship claim. Each share is this word’s portion of its verses in that division of the Hebrew canon. Each figure is a share of the word’s 9 distinct verses.
- Writings (Ketuvim) 9 verses · 100%
How translations render this word
Counts come from each version’s own published word-to-Strong’s tagging or interlinear alignment — an approximate guide to how each version renders this word, not a word-level alignment the data otherwise carries. Because each total is that version’s own tagged count, the per-version totals vary from one another and need not match the appearance or distinct-verse counts above. These counts may also differ from a printed concordance because Lemma counts each distinctly tagged rendering and does not collapse phrase taggings into a single head-word total. This is a fixed set of word-tagged versions (KJV, ASV, BSB, ULT) and does not change with the reading translation you choose elsewhere. Each version’s license is shown beside its name below (and on Sources).
- King James Version: Came near 2×
- American Standard Version: Came near 2×
- Berean Standard Bible: Approached 1×, Came forward 1×, He reached 1×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Came forward 1×, Came near 1×, He came near 1×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H7127 across 8 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 6 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings. Not rendered by a distinct English word in 1 further occurrence.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H7127 across 8 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 6 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H7127 across 9 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H7127 across 9 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Senses in the full BDB
Hebrew verbs can shift meaning by stem (binyan): Qal is the basic action, Niphal is often passive or reflexive, Piel often intensifies or makes it factitive, and Hiphil is typically causative. The senses below are grouped under the stem BDB assigns to each. This entry also uses Peal (the basic Aramaic stem, parallel to Qal), Pael (the intensive Aramaic stem, parallel to Piel), and Haphel (the causative Aramaic stem, parallel to Hiphil).
What do BDB’s symbols mean?
BDB uses these scholarly abbreviations:
| Symbol | Meaning |
|---|---|
| 𝔊 | the Septuagint (the ancient Greek translation, LXX) |
| 𝔙 | the Vulgate (the Latin translation) |
| 𝔖 | the Syriac version (the Peshitta) |
| 𝔗 | the Targum (the Aramaic translation) |
| ψ | the Psalms |
| √ | root (the underlying root or stem) |
| ‖ | parallel passage (a synonymous or contrasted parallel) |
| † | the dagger: every passage where the word occurs is cited |
The 4 senses and sub-senses the full Brown-Driver-Briggs lexicon distinguishes for this word, in lexicon order (not ranked by frequency), with BDB’s own verbatim wording and sub-sense lettering. Shown in Hebrew script with BDB’s own scholarly abbreviations. The condensed entry is in the Lexicon Entry tab. See also the Forms in the corpus table below.
Peal
- . when he approached
Pael
- . offer sacrifice
Haphel
- 1. = Pa.
- 2. bring near
Senses from the full Brown-Driver-Briggs lexicon (Brown, Driver, Briggs; Oxford 1906 — public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). Full attribution on Sources.
Word origin
Derived from קרב (qârab) (H7126) — to approach.
Jastrow Dictionary
A second Hebrew/Aramaic lexicon for comparison, covering Aramaic and post-biblical (Talmudic, Targumic, Midrashic) usage that the biblical-Hebrew BDB does not. Matched by lemma rather than by Strong’s number, so a lemma may carry more than one Jastrow headword (shown separately below), and the entries cover usage well beyond the Bible.
קָרֵב
- (b. h.)
- 1. to join, come near, be near; to be offered as קָרְבָּן. Zeb. VIII, 2 יִקְרַב לשם מי שהוא let it be offered in behalf of him to whom it may belong. Ib. 5 אם ק׳ … יִקְרְבוּ וכ׳ if one of the heads has been offered, let all of them be offered. Ib. 67ᵇ; Ḳinnim III, 3 חטאת קְרֵיבָה למעלה וכ׳ the sin-offering may have been offered on top and the burnt-offering beneath it. Men. VI, 1 הקומץ ק׳ … קְרֵבִים לעצמן the handful (of the priests’ meal-offering) is offered separately and the remainder separately; Y. Sot. III, 19ᵇ top קְרֵיבִין. Sifré Num. 29 קבע זמן לקריבים … למקריבים a time is fixed for the things to be offered (Lev. XXII, 27), and a time for those who offer (Num. VI, 10); a. fr. e.g. Leviticus 22:27
- 2. to come before court; to sue, complain. Gen. R. s. 96 (ref. to ויקרבו, Gen. XLVII, 29) כאדם … ק׳ על וכ׳ as one says, that man has brought suit against his neighbor, v. קָבַל II; Yalk. ib. 156 קבל (corr. acc.). e.g. Genesis 47:29
- 1. same, same, to come near. Ex. R. s. 20, beg. לא קי׳ אצל וכ׳ he had not come near Sarah.—Esp. to approach; to pray, intercede, mediate, conciliate. Y. Ber. IV, 8ᵇ top זה שעובר … בא וקָרֵב עשה קרבנינו וכ׳ we do not say to him who is to pass before the ark (v. תֵּיבָה), ‘come and pray’, but, ‘come, draw near’, (which means) ‘do our offerings’, ‘satisfy our needs’ &c.
- 2. to bring near; to befriend, attract, invite. B. Kam. 24ᵃ ק׳ נגיחותיו if the ox did his gorings in near intervals (of less than three days). Eduy. VIII, 7 אין אליהו … לרחק ולְקָרֵב … המְקוֹרָבִין בזרוע וכ׳ Elijah shall come not to decide between clean and unclean, nor to expel (declare genealogically degraded) and to receive (reinstate), but to expel those who have been received by force, and to reinstate those who have been expelled by force. Ib. משפחת … וקֵרְבָהּ בן וכ׳ there was a family … which Ben-Zion expelled by force, and another which they received by force (Bab. ed. וקֵרְבוּהָ בני וב׳; v. Rabb. D. S. a. l. note 40); Tosef. ib. III, 4; Kidd. 71ᵃ. Eduy. l. c. לא לרחק ולא לקרב וכ׳ neither to expel nor to reinstate, but to make peace &c. Sabb. 31ᵃ קֵירְבָנוּ תחת וכ׳, v. עִנְוְתָנוּת. Ib. שקֵרַבְתַּנִי וכ׳ Ms. M. (ed. שהקרבתני) thou hast brought us near &c. Tanḥ. Tsav 8 (ref. to Ps. LXV, 5) אשרי מי שבחרו … קֵרְבוֹ blessed he whom the Lord has chosen, although he did not bring him near; Num. R. s. 3 הקריבו. Ib. ק׳ את עצמו he brought himself near (to God, through his own deeds); ib. יתרו קרבו הקב"ה the Lord brought Jethro near (caused him to be converted); Yalk. Ex. 379; a. fr.—Sifré Num. 94 (expl. לזרא, Num. XI, 20, cmp. זָר) שתהיו מרחיקים … מְקָרְבִים אותו you will keep it at a distance (loathe it) more than you have been inviting (wishing for) it; Lev. R. s. 48.—Part. pass. מְקוֹרָב; pl. מְקוֹרָבִין, v. supra. e.g. Psalms 65:5
- 1. to bring near, receive. Y. Dem. II, 23ᵃ top מַקְרִיבִין לכנפים, v. כָּנָף. Num. R. l. c.; Sabb. l. c., v. supra; a. fr.
- 2. to offer, sacrifice. Men. XIII, 10 יַקְרִיבֶנָּה במקדש he must offer it in the Temple (of Jerusalem), ואם הִקְרִיבָהּ וכ׳ but if he offered it in the Temple of Ḥonyo (in Egypt). Zeb. 67ᵇ ותַקְרִיבֶנָּה למעלה and let her offer it on top, (v. supra Kal); Kinn. III, 6 ויַקְרִיבֶנָּה וכ׳ Mish. (Bab. ed. ויקרבנה, corr. acc.) and he (the priest) must offer it &c. Ber. 6ᵇ כאילו ה׳ תודה as if he had offered a thank-offering. Ib. 17ᵃ as long as the Temple stood אדם חוטא ומַקְרִיב וכ׳ a man sinned and brought a sacrifice; ואין מקריבין וכ׳ yet only its fat and its blood were offered; כאילו הִקְרַבְתִּיו לפניך וכ׳ as if I had offered it (my fat and blood) on the altar before thee; a. v. fr.
- to be offered. Y. Meg. I, 70ᶜ top ונִקְרְבוּ מהן וכ׳ and from their contributions was taken the wood for sacrifices; (Y. Taan. IV, 68ᵇ; Y. Shek. IV, beg. 47ᵈ וקרבו).
- 1. to be brought near, be received. Num. R. s. 3 יש נבחר ונדחה ונ׳ וכ׳ some are chosen and repelled (disgraced) and received again &c. Sifra Tsav, Milluïm ידע משה שנ׳ אהרן Moses learned that Aaron was received again (in grace); Yalk. Lev. 515; a. fr.
- 2. to be offered, sacrificed. Y. Taan. l. c. שלא יהא קרבן מִתְקָרֵב וכ׳ that none but their contributions should be offered first. Pirké d’R. El. ch. XXXI אותו האיל … ובא להִתְקָרֵב וכ׳ that ram … ran and came to offer himself as a sacrifice in place of Isaac &c.; Yalk. Gen. 101; a. e.
- 3. to claim relationship. Deut. R. s. 2 אם קרובו עני … פלוני מתקרב לי if a man’s relative is poor, he makes himself the main person and him subordinate, saying, this man claims relationship to me; Y. Ber. IX, 13ᵇ (in mutilated text) ההן פלן מתקרב לן.
קְרֵב
- 1. to be near, come near, touch. Targ. Num. XXVII, 1. Targ. Ex. XXXVI, 2. Targ. I Kings II, 1; a. fr.—Pesik. Zakhor, p. 24ᵇ קריב לגביה, v. בָּלַם II. Eduy. VIII, 4 דיִקְרַב במיתא he who touches a corpse; a. e.
- 2. to intercede, protect. Y. Dem. I, 22ᵃ בני קרתי קוֹרְבִין לי (not קרתיה) fellow-citizens, protect me!; בני דודי קורבין לי (not דידי) children of my friend (the Lord), protect you me!; Y. Taan. III, 66ᶜ top בני דילי וכ׳ (corr. acc.).
- 3. to complain, sue. Y. B. Bath. IX, beg. 16ᵈ אתון בנוי קַרְבוּן וכ׳ his sons came and complained before R. E. Ib. אתת וקְרֵיבָה וכ׳ she came and complained &c.
- 4. to bring near; to offer, v. infra.
- 1. to bring near; to offer. Targ. Gen. XLVIII, 9, sq. Ib. 13 (Y. ed. Vien. קְריב; h. text ויַּגֵּשׁ). Targ. Is. LVIII, 3 (h. text תִּנְגּשׁוֹּ!). Targ. O. Lev. I, 2 יְקָרֵיב (Y. יִקְרַב). Ib. 3 (Y. יַקְרִיב Af.). Ib. 14 (Y. also יַקְרִיב); a. fr.—Gitt. 56ᵃ סבור רבנן לקָרוּבֵיה the rabbis were of the opinion that it should be offered. Y. Ber. IX, 13ᵈ top הוה … אתי למִיקָרְבָה וכ׳ (or למִיקְרְבָה) when a man came to offer, to the idol, an ox &c. Y. Snh. X, 29ᵇ מְקָרְבָא לגיחזי to bring Gehazi near (befriend him again). Num. R. s. 3 אלהכון מאן הוא בעי מְקָרֵיב does your God bring near him (grace) whomever he chooses to? B. Bath. 168ᵃ אפי׳ צורבא … לְקָרוּבֵיה even in the case of a young scholar whom it may be supposed his intended father-in-law likes to bring into his family; a. fr.—Part. pass. מְקָרַב; f. מְקָרְבָא, מְקָרְבָה; pl. מְקָרְבִין; מְקָרְבָן near, friendly. Sabb. 104ᵃ מ"ט שקר ק׳ מיליה אמת וכ׳ why are the letters of שקר (falsehood) near together (in the order of the alphabet), and those of אמת (truth) far apart? Snh. 29ᵃ מק׳ דעתיה he is friendly, v. רְחַק.—3) to intercede, lead in prayer. Midr. Till. to Ps. XIX חזיוה לחזנא דקָרֵיב וכ׳ they noticed that the officer of the synagogue led in prayer and said &c.
- to bring near; to offer. Targ. Mal. II, 12; a. fr.—Gitt. l. c. אי מַקְרְבִין ליה (or מְקָרְבִין Pa.), v. קָרְבַּן. Ḥag. 8ᵇ האי דלא אַקְרְבִינְהוּ וכ׳ the reason why they did not offer them was &c.; a. fr.—Yeb. 39ᵇ איקרבת ית וכ׳ (read: אַקְרִיבַת) she brought before us (the court) such and such a person &c.
- 1. to approach, come near. Targ. Y. Deut. XX, 3; O. ib. ed. Berl. (oth. ed. קריבין). Ib. XXV, 9; a. fr.—Keth. 56ᵃ משום אִיקָּרוּבֵי דעתא הוא והא אִיקָּרְבָא דעתא (when a man promises his bride an additional jointure,) it is in order that an attachment be formed; well, now, the attachment has been formed (and we have a right to assume that he wanted his bride to get that addition, even if he should die before the wedding).
- 2. to claim relationship, v. preced.
קֶרֶב
- preced.)
- 1. inside, intestine.—Du. קְרָבַיִם, קְרָבַיִים; constr. קִרְבֵּי, קִירְ׳. Num. R. s. 7 (ref. to Num. XIV, 11 בקרבו) אטר אעשה עמו … בקרבו כמה … עשיתי בקִרְבֵּיהֶן וכ׳ it does not read, ‘which I do with them’, but ‘which I do within them’:… how many signs and wonders have I done in their intestines (that the manna was entirely resorbed in their bowels) &c. (with ref. to קֶרֶב Lev. VIII, 21). Tam. IV, 2. Ḥull. 16ᵇ קירבי דגים entrails of fish. Y. Sabb. II, 4ᵈ ק׳ דגים כל זמן וכ׳ the fat of fish entrails (used as oil) has no bad odor as long as it burns. B. Mets. 60ᵇ, v. נָפַח; a. fr.—Ned. 54ᵇ ק׳ לאו בשר וכ׳ entrails are no meat and he who eats them is no man; Y. ib. VII, beg. 40ᵇ קרבייא (ch. form). Ber. 10ᵃ; a. fr. e.g. Numbers 14:11
- 2. innermost; בְּקֶרֶב within. Pesik. R. s. 13 בְּקִרְבַּנוּ, v. רָחַשׁ; a. e.
קָרֵב ²
- m., v. קָרֵיב
קְרָב
- preced. wds.) hostile contact, attack, war. Y. Sot. VIII, 21ᶜ top רומי לק׳ the Roman (Latin) language is adapted for military affairs; Y. Meg. I, 71ᵇ bot.; Esth. R. to I, 22. Sabb. 59ᵃ בשעה שבורח מן הק׳ וכ׳ when he flees from the battle, he puts it on &c.; a. e.
קְרָב ²
- Targ. II Sam. XXI, 15. Targ. Ps. XXVII, 3. Ib. XXXV, 1; a. fr.—Ib. קְרַבְתִּי, v. קְרָבוּ.—Tosef. Sot. XIII, 5, v. נְגַח; Y. ib. IX, 24ᵇ; Bab. ib. 33ᵃ. Lev. R. s. 22 דעבד ק׳ עם וכ׳ who wages war with a king &c. Gitt. 56ᵃ ניפוק … ק׳ בהדייהו let us go out and offer them (the Romans) battle; a. fr.—Pl. קְרָבִין, קְרָבַיָּא. Targ. Num. XXI, 14. Targ. I Chr. XXVIII, 3; a. e.
A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature (Marcus Jastrow; London, Luzac, 1903) — Public Domain. Digitized via Sefaria. Digitized via Sefaria. Full attribution on Sources.
Forms in the corpus
The 9 distinct written forms H7127 takes in the Hebrew Bible, most frequent first — each parse links to that stem’s occurrences in the concordance. Hebrew forms include their vowel points and cantillation, so a single lemma takes many written forms.
| Form | Parsing | Example | Uses |
|---|---|---|---|
| הַקְרְבֽוּ/הִי | Verb, Hiphil, Perfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Plural | Daniel 7:13 | 1 |
| וְ/הַקְרִ֗בוּ | Verb, Hiphil, Perfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Plural | Ezra 6:17 | 1 |
| וּ/כְ/מִקְרְבֵ֣/הּ | Verb, Qal, Infinitive Construct | Daniel 6:20 | 1 |
| וּ/תְקָרֵ֣ב | Verb, Piel, Imperfect, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular | Ezra 7:17 | 1 |
| מְהַקְרְבִ֛ין | Verb, Hiphil, Participle Active, Masculine, Plural, Absolute | Ezra 6:10 | 1 |
| קְרִ֖בוּ | Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Plural | Daniel 3:8 | 1 |
| קְרִ֨יבוּ | Verb, Qal Passive, Perfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Plural | Daniel 6:12 | 1 |
| קְרֵ֣ב | Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular | Daniel 3:26 | 1 |
| קִרְבֵ֗ת | Verb, Qal, Perfect, 1st Person, Common, Singular | Daniel 7:16 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H7127, grouped by Strong’s listed origin. These share a root / origin per the lexicon — not necessarily a shared meaning. Each links to that word’s own entry.
Derives from
Shares the same root
- קרב qᵉrâb H7128 battle
- קרב qereb H7130 midst
- קרב qârêb H7131 near
- קרבה qᵉrâbâh H7132 approach
- קרבן qorbân H7133 offering
- קרוב qârôwb H7138 near
Compare all same-root words → Showing 4 of 8 — not the complete family. They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 9 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 9 Hebrew verses it occurs in. You can read those verses in Greek by switching the Old Testament edition to the Septuagint.
Read these verses in the Septuagint
This is a verse-level parallel only — the same verses exist in both the Hebrew and Greek Old Testaments. No word-level Hebrew↔Greek correspondence is claimed: the data carries no such alignment, so no Greek word is shown as this Hebrew word’s translation. Coverage is not total — the Septuagint omits the deuterocanon and renumbers the Psalms, so some Hebrew verses have no direct Greek parallel.
